One of the talking points probably will center on whether AFL-CIO leaders will allow the Teamsters and other breakaway unions to retain local ties to the state federation after bolting from the national organization on Monday, Utah union leaders said.

Ralph Taurone, a member of the Utah Teamsters executive board and a national vice president at large, said maintaining those local bonds is critical in Utah and other so-called "right to work" states that have been historically hostile to unions.

"There are many opportunities for local unions to remain affiliated on a statewide basis," said Taurone, "but whether or not the AFL-CIO's national headquarters will accept that, we just don't know."

On Monday, the Teamsters and the Service Employees International Union, the largest AFL-CIO affiliate with 1.8 million members, severed ties with the national federation. And at least seven unions have announced plans to leave the national federation over disputes with leadership and organizing efforts, including the United Food and Commercial Workers, which is boycotting the federation's Chicago convention.

In Utah, the food workers and Teamsters have a combined membership of 5,000, which is less than 8 percent of the federation's total membership statewide.

How the national rift plays out locally may not be known for months, and at least not until the AFL-CIO convention in Chicago ends Thursday.

"There's a lot of egos here," said the AFL-CIO's Utah President Ed Mayne in a telephone interview from Chicago. "The most powerful labor people are expert negotiators and they've been negotiating with each other for the past six months. That's the irony in this whole thing."

Mayne insisted that bonds between local affiliates will keep the labor movement in Utah intact. But if the national AFL-CIO refuses to recognize local ties with dissident unions, "it would be a negotiating point that would need to be discussed."

Nationally, the schism is deep and personal.

The service employees union was once headed by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, who called the move "a grievous insult" to working people.

Andrew Stern, the service union president and a former Sweeney protege, countered that the national federation refuses to change in the face of an evolving global economy.

The dissident unions - representing one-third of the AFL-CIO's 13 million members - are forming a competing coalition of labor groups with the goal of reversing a decades-long decline in union membership. The SEIU and Teamsters alone account for more than $20 million of estimated $120 million annual budget of the AFL-CIO, which has laid off a quarter of its 400-member staff.

The future of the labor movement could be greatly affected by the success or failure of Stern's effort to build a coalition outside the AFL-CIO that dedicates more money and manpower to recruiting union members and less money to political operations that benefit the Democratic Party, one reason why party leaders worry about a weakened federation.

The AFL-CIO also spends millions of dollars on programs that help get Democratic voters to turn out on Election Day.

Monday's mutiny represents the biggest rift in organized labor since the CIO split from the AFL in 1938. Supporters of the breakup note that labor made big gains when the two groups competed.

One of every three private-sector workers belonged to a labor group when the AFL and CIO merged in the 1950s. Now, less than 8 percent of private-sector workers are unionized. Globalization, automation and the transition from an industrial-based economy have forced hundreds of thousands of unionized workers out of jobs, weakening labor's role.

Utah also has seen a decline in union membership, from 72,000 in the 1980s to 65,000 today, according to the AFL-CIO.

No one union dominates the Utah federation, which is made up of nearly 200 groups representing a diverse section of workers, including mail handlers, actors, airline pilots, the construction trades, electricians, plumbers, sheet metal and iron workers, firefighters and musicians.

The largest group in the state federation is the Steelworkers Union, which has about 7,000 members, according to Mayne, followed by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers with 6,000 members, the American Federation of Government Employees at 5,000 members and the Communication Workers of America with 4,000 members.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.